


Keeping Track

by ljs



Category: The Man From U.N.C.L.E. (2015)
Genre: F/M, Gen, Post-Movie(s)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-30
Updated: 2015-08-30
Packaged: 2018-04-18 02:46:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,305
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4689521
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ljs/pseuds/ljs
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's the night before a mission in London. Some of the team have plans. Cooking lessons, gifts, threats.... the usual.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Keeping Track

“Be careful with the knife,” Waverly says, “it’s very sharp.”

“I can see that,” Solo mutters, and represses a crazed, self-destructive impulse to throw the knife up in the air. That would be painful if he caught it wrong, and painful if he didn’t catch it at all – seeing that he’s in London, in the well-appointed kitchen of what has every appearance of being Waverly’s private flat in a high-end mansion block in St James, of which space Waverly seems slightly protective.

Then Gaby pokes her head in, and Solo makes a mental note: here’s where Waverly really _is_ protective. (In the sense that he expects Solo and Kuryakin to put Gaby’s welfare on an equal footing with whatever UNCLE mission he’s running at any given time, not that he protects Gaby as spy at all.) 

Yes, there’s that annoyingly paternal note in Waverly’s voice as he says, “Did you get what you needed, Gaby?”

She gives them both that gamine grin. “Yes, boss, I did. Will you need us for anything else tonight?”

“No, no,” Waverly says, and waves his own knife at her. “Mission at 0900 hours tomorrow, though.”

“We’ll be ready.” Gaby nods, then winks at Solo. “Don’t be too wild now, Cowboy.”

When the echo of her footsteps on the outer stairs to the third floor is gone, Solo slams his blade down on an unsuspecting green pepper on his cutting board. “I hate it when she calls me ‘Cowboy’,” he says darkly, and then dispatches all the water chestnuts as well.

“Don’t like it when our Gaby uses our Illya’s pet name for you?” Waverly says, with entirely spurious sympathy.

Solo glares at him. The whole tedious day has been Waverly’s fault: sending Solo and Kuryakin to St James’ Park to loiter damply near the ducks until their contact from McNair’s organization turned up with the first microfilm, and then to loiter dustily in the London Library until the CIA contact arrived with the second microfilm. (Peril, of course, had gotten lost in some Turgenev he’d found at the library – he was a menace to himself in any bookshop, and worse in libraries and archives – and Solo had had to step very hard on his enormous foot to regain his attention before Malcolm arrived. That had been the only happy moment in a very boring day of preparation.)

“How was your tea with Great-Aunt Alice?” Solo says, smooth and cold. Waverly had begged off the London Library duty because of a prior engagement with an aged relative; when Solo had surveyed the Ritz at tea-time, however, just out of idle curiosity, the ‘great-aunt’ had been a beautifully turned-out brunette of a certain age.

“Ah. Yes, I rather thought I saw you. You’re slipping,” Waverly says. “And yes, well-spotted, that was not my great-aunt but my ex-wife.” The knife in his hand suddenly looks very like a weapon.

“Not my business,” Solo says. He almost means it.

“No,” Waverly says. It is a period, or as the Brits say, a full-stop, to that line of discussion. “So do you want to learn this technique I picked up in Hong Kong, or don’t you?”

“I live to learn,” Solo says.

They turn their attention to the serious business of cooking. And if Solo occasionally looks overhead to the flat where Peril and Gaby are staying, well, he’s been trained to keep track of things.  
………………………………..

Gaby swings the small hamper from hand to hand as she approaches the door of the flat. Before she can dig out a key, however, the door opens. Illya is a long tall shadow just beyond the threshold.

“You are late,” he says, and opens the door wider.

“No, I’m not,” she says, and dances through the space between her mountainous partner and the doorframe.

The door closes almost silently – because he can move so quietly for such a big man, when he wants to – and then he lifts the hamper away from her. Or tries to, and fails. Because she has Plans for him, and part of them is hidden in this wicker basket. “What is this, my girl?”

“You’ll find out soon enough,” she says, grinning. “And I’ve brought supper.”

“But not just supper?” he says, his eyebrows raised.

“You’re clever, my boy.” She moves away, and throws over her shoulder, “But not as clever as I am.”

“I let you think that,” he says. She knows him now after six months of shared missions and nights alone, hears the humor and sweetness under all that damage and anger. She knows how much he cares.

That knowledge prompts her to pirouette in place, one perfect revolution.

“You dance better when you’re not drunk,” he says, chuckling.

“For that rudeness, you might not get your gift,” she informs him, and then moves to the small table by the window.

Illya has laid out his chessboard on the far side – where, she realizes, he must have been watching for her to walk down the quiet, lamp-lit St James street – but there’s plenty of room for them to eat here. She’s spy enough now to twitch the curtains closed, to protect them from the world outside.

It’s enough to be here, in this soft, warm safehouse above Waverly’s: not much bigger than their first shared suite at the Plaza in Rome, but much more comfortable. (She and Illya have signed papers that say they will not destroy the furniture. She is resigned to behaving better, at least for the time covered by the contract.)

She is so busy appreciating the evening that she doesn’t expect Illya’s hands on her shoulders. She doesn’t jump, though. Her body recognizes his touch.

He slides his cool hands down her arms, slowly, slowly, the way he always does, as if he’s memorizing her skin. Then he takes her hands in his and holds them closer to the light. “You missed some grease. Under your thumb,” he says into her ear. “Did you enjoy your afternoon playing with engines?”

“I did,” she says, and leans her head back against his chest. “I’m ready for the op tomorrow.”

This close, she can feel Illya tense. He’ll be the one undercover tomorrow, posing as a disaffected defector, a language professor with knowledge to sell to the bad-guy mastermind; she and Solo will be busy with trackers and “mechanical malfunctions” (to be caused by her) in the bad guy’s Jaguar. “It’ll be okay,” she says.

“I’m not worried,” he says, worry threaded through his voice. She knows that he doesn’t fear for himself. He just doesn’t like her to take risks, even though he respects her capabilities. Something about “the Russian way” – he explained it once but Gaby found it boring.

She turns in his arms and reaches up. He willingly bends his head, and she kisses him, softly as the evening calls for. “There,” she says as she pulls away. She doesn’t elaborate, and he doesn’t ask her to. They usually don’t press on these moments, lest they find unsuspected bruises.

His blue eyes are alight with affection when he says, “Ah. I meant to say, I have laid out clothes for your tomorrow.”

It’s a perfect cue for her gift, but she lets it play out one more exchange – “Do you not trust me to choose my own clothes?”

“I do not fall into trap, my girl,” he says, a laugh hiding in his voice. “But I felt perhaps we save time that way.”

“Uh-huh,” she says. “Did you lay out your own clothes?”

“Cowboy tried,” he says. “He says he has better taste in suits. He is, of course, liar.”

She knows better than to comment on that: she, too, recognizes a trap when she hears one. Anyway, she knows that Illya had had a happy afternoon last week with a retired tailor Waverly knows, being fitted for his cover’s wardrobe and chatting with the tailor about fabric and cut, and those suits were delivered yesterday. So she butterfly-kisses him again and says, “You don’t have good cufflinks.”

“I have fine cufflinks,” he says, slightly irritated.

“But you could have better,” she says, and spins out of his arms. The hamper clasp is easily flipped, and she dives in and finds the little leather-wrapped box she acquired after playing with engines. (Waverly is invaluable. He knows everyone.)

“What is this, my girl?” Illya says.

“You’re not having a very special day, agent,” she says teasingly – Waverly’s said that to him in her hearing at least three times, and it infuriates Illya each and every time -- and she puts the box in his hand. “What have we just been talking about?”

He doesn’t open it. He just stands there, the box looking small in his big palm, and gazes at her. “Gaby?” he says uncertainly.

He often needs her to take the initiative in their relationship: that damage again, those feelings of unworthiness, sometimes freeze him in unhappy places. So she flips open the lid of the box for him.

The cufflinks are silver and mother-of-pearl, heavy, sized for his frame. “There,” she says.

His index finger gently touches the surface – she thinks of him in bed, his fingers finding her and pressing in – and then circles behind the oval. She grins; she didn’t think it would take him long to figure it out. Yes – “Gaby, these are trackers?”

“Yes.” She waves her hand, the one still wearing his ring, at him. “I need to keep track of you, as you do me.”

“For the mission,” he says.

She rolls her eyes. “ _Not_ just for the mission, my boy.”

He smiles at that, and then reaches behind her to place the box on the table. She doesn’t move, so his weight is just there, not quite touching the front of her body. She smells the hotel soap on him, and the fading starch in his shirt. She feels warm everywhere, the coldness of years all gone.

Then, still leaning over so that his mouth is at his ear, he says quietly, “Will the supper you brought keep?”

She turns her head and brushes her mouth against him. “Of course. I am just that clever.”

“Good.” He picks her up, as is his habit, and she wraps her legs around his waist, as is hers. One of his hands spread across her back for pleasure and for balance, he kisses her. It’s deep, sweet with a hint of roughness, just the way she likes. Then, “We dance in bed now.”

“Yes. It’s too dangerous out of it,” she says, laughing.

“Contract, yes,” he murmurs, and kisses her again.

She flicks on the radio in passing as he carries her to their bedroom. A woman’s voice singing of love over sad guitars comes on.

But then he drops her on the bed, and then he (carefully) drops onto her, and she stops keeping track of the music. Illya’s got her. Time to dance.  
.................................................

“That was delicious,” Solo says, and pushes away his empty plate. “I’ll remember the trick with the oil when I make it myself.”

“Do,” Waverly says genially, and settles back with his loosened tie and his perfectly prepared cup of green tea.

Solo tops off his own glass of a very nice dry Riesling. “So, boss,” he says, “I imagine you intended something with this cooking lesson.”

“You’ve picked up that name from our Gaby, I see.” Waverly sips his drink.

“Yep. And I pick up on misdirection, too. What’s the deal?”

“Ah. Perfect choice of words.” Waverly reaches into his inside jacket pocket and brings out a wrapped, fresh pack of cards. “Perhaps we might play a little blackjack.”

Solo’s fingers are itching just at the sight of cards, his old addictions rising up like water in a well into which a stone has been dropped. “Temptation, boss?” he manages to say, with at least half of his usual nonchalance. “Is this a test?”

“Well,” Waverly says meditatively, as he places the cards between them, “let’s think of it more as a method of interrogation.”

Solo raises his eyebrows.

“You see, Solo, I am rather interested in the whereabouts of my family’s ruby necklace, which you stole from my brother’s wife three years ago.” He flicks a finger against the cards. “I like to keep up with those things.”

Above their heads, there’s a thump, as if something (say, a bedframe) is hitting a wall. And then another. And then another…. But this is ordinary background noise for Solo now. He’s busy trying to control his hands and his thoughts.

“Those rubies were fake,” Solo says, through dry lips.

Waverly laughs. “No, no. The family diamonds are paste, I’ll grant you. But the rubies are quite real. As I believe you know very well.”

Solo swallows. He’s beaten any way this plays out. “The piece is in a lockbox in Paris. I’ll give you the location and combination.”

“Excellent,” Waverly says. “I was rather hoping to present them to Helen. My ex-wife, whom you saw today.” He reaches into his pocket again and pulls out a book of matches and an envelope.

The name on the cover of the matches is one that Solo recognizes: a private, members-only club in Berkeley Square, the most exclusive of the exclusives. He’s had half a mind to try to con his way in, but…. “Boss?”

“You deserve a little something for being so truthful,” Waverly says. “I hear the women there are stunning. Just your type.” He pushes the envelope – an invitation to membership, Solo assumes – across the table.

"Why? Why are you giving me this?” Solo asks. It’s a honest question, the kind he usually doesn’t allow himself.

“Let’s just say that I like to keep track of my team’s well-being,” Waverly says, and smiles, and leans back in his chair and sips his tea.


End file.
